I’m a long time user, advocate and all-round fan of Linux. In particular, I’ve used Debian or variant distributions and have never had any major issues (well none that weren’t PEBKAC). I’ve been running Debian Sid on my Thinkpad X31 for around three years now, and out of curiosity I thought I’d try out Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex for good measure – it’s apparently a very good update. Having also been using Ubuntu on-and-off on my various laptops over the years (since ‘Warty’ – version 4.10), I knew I had to expect the best.
I docked myself at my Workstation and started downloading an ISO. Once finished, I burnt it and rebooted my Thinkpad. One of the great things about Ubuntu’s installation (which has existed for a while) is the Live CD – you get to boot into Ubuntu without having to install anything. It works well and is a great feature for new users who aren’t sure what they’re doing, or whether they want to risk installing Linux. What’s great is that the hardware issues of old are long gone: . Unforunately I found the boot-up process to be volatile: it was taking a long time and things didn’t look great. I eventually got into X and played around. Amazingly I had all my Thinkpad buttons working; suspend, hibernate (suspend-to-disk) and even the back & forward buttons for the browser. It worked flawlessly.
Naturally I decided to install as I was very impressed. So I fire up the installation procedure by clicking ‘Install’ on the Live CD’s desktop and go through the motions. Clicking ‘Forward’ after the username setup freezes, and my laptop performs a hard-shutdown…WTF?? I try again – the same thing happens. What’s going on? I decided to get an alternate ISO and try that. Thankfully it installed, but I was a little concerned that nothing was going to work…
After finally booting into X after my little ordeal, I decide to run `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` in a shell. To my surprise, as soon as it starts upgrading packages (a Kernel upgrade) my shell gets spammed with “The system is going down for a reboot NOW!” and Ubuntu shuts down. Ouch. This isn’t good.
I’ve had overheating issues in the past, but this is beginning to worry me. Anything even remotely CPU intensive (scrolling the wireless network list, apt-get upgrade, etc etc) causes Ubuntu to force shutdown, and I’m left looking very cross at my X31.
Some googling produces thread after thread on the Ubuntu forums about this, but things seem to be getting ignored. There’s no issues, and people are talking about the exact same problems in Gutsy and Feisty – that’s three or more major releases ago. I’ve tried these things:
- Adding the following to /etc/rc.local:
echo -n “90:80:60:75:70:65″ > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/trip_points echo 2 > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/polling_frequency
- Appending these modules to /etc/modules:
battery
ac
thermal
processor
acpi-cpufreq
cpufreq-userspace
No luck. Furthermore, with each futile attempt, I get hard-rebooted or even worse: no init 0, just a hard shutdown. It’s frustrating and furthermore it is very likely that this is damaging my hardware. I’ve been monitoring `acpi -t` output, top and more but nothing’s helping. Even running /etc/init.d/gdm stop and trying the apt-get upgrade in a shell doesn’t help: same old hard shutdown.
I don’t know what to do. I’m a big fan of Ubuntu as it’s bringing Linux to the masses, but I can’t keep doing this to my poor old Thinkpad X31 – it won’t last much longer.
Anyone out there have any ideas?
Update: I’ve filed a bug report here
16 Comments
Hopefully this does get fixed as it is affecting many people.
well, if you can’t stand it, don’t install it, especially non LTS releases… c’mon…
I had this exact problem on my IBM T40 laptop. I tried every recommended solution and workaround. Nothing fixed it. It was this bug that made me leave the Ubuntu distribution and go back to Slackware. It is unacceptable that this is *still* an ongoing issue.
@blah – It’s attitudes like yours that continue to propagate problems like this. Non-LTS or not, a bug that has been reported over and over again through multiple distributions without being fixed is irresponsible.
@rob: Yeah, you’re right. Astonished to find so many people being affected but very few official fixes.
@blah: wrong. This isn’t anything to do with LTS, and I’m doing them a favour by trying each release.
Are there any log files generated? (possible hints to the problem?)
Hmmm, smells like a ACPI problem…You need to provide more details with your bug report.
=> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingACPI#Filing%20a%20Bug%20Report
I’m using a ThinkPad T43 here, and I’m not encountering the same issues with Xubuntu 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04.
What I did encounter though, was the HDD clicking issue, which I had to manually fix by adjusting some config files. (Supposedly, this problem is fixed in the current release of 8.10).
Hard shutdowns are typically initiated to protect the system from permanent damage. (However, my concern is always the impact on HDDs and the data on them).
Are you sure it’s a thermal shutdown event? If yes, then you may just want to open up the system, use an air-duster to blow out the CPU-fan to clear away dust, and then get a fresh tube of thermal grease. (Your old thermal goop may have gone McCain on you…. old & dried up).
Then make sure your system is on a hard flat surface and can get plenty of airflow.
Could be a hardware issue that Ubuntu is exposing but can’t tell you about, like a hard drive failure, or bad memory. I’ve installed Ubuntu 7.x and 8.04 on my fairly new laptop, and I’ve installed 8.04 and 8.10 on my brand new desktop. After some minor waves, things have settled down and I’m happy with 8.10. Since this problem sounds like a BSOD on Windows, I would have to suggest performing memory checks and HD disk checks.
@Allan, I did a memtest, nothing happened.
@aussiebear, thank you, I’ve added those to my bug report as also requested by Teej.
I have a T41, but the install was flawless…
It would’nt surprise me if you have a hardware issue which is being noticed during the Ubuntu boot process. In other words, Ubuntu is not causing the hardware issue, but preventing the hardware issue. In other words, Ubuntu tries not to use your already somewhat damaged hardware and break it even further.
See if there is are bios upgrade/downgrades available for your laptop. From looking around there seems to be people running the same hardware/software without the same issue. But it does seem that there quite a few people with problem.. Maybe there are some bios settings that be reset or adjusted?
There is a long thread on this problem on ubuntuforums.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=821597
I’ve had Ubuntu installed on my Thinkpad X31 since 7.04, (tried 6.06 too), and I’m currently using 8.10. Zero problems. Like you say, everything works as though 8.10 were OEM installed. A+.
I just wish I had more such equipment to install it on.
Writing this on an X31 with Ubuntu 8.10 installed. I have never had the described problems. I have run Ubuntu for the past 2 years on this machine.
I’ve had the exact same problem on my desktop PC since Hardy and it’s getting really annoying now. I can’t use Audacity, some flash heavy websites/online newspapers through Firefox nor Alien Arena.
My bug report is here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/314688,
Maybe I should tag onto yours, but I’ve had no response. Since then, I’ve taken to opening the case to let more air circulate (it helps a bit) and am now looking at extra cooling. However, having reinstalled Windblows to test out similar portable programs, this problem just doesn’t exist.
Agrrrrrrrrrr
I have just upgraded to 8.10 and getting random shutdowns. I had no such issues with 8.04. I did have fancontrol setup but disabled it last night and the computer has stayed on so far.
I think there are a lot of acpi issues with ubuntu.
I personally have to install it with acpi=off then remove powernowd and then remove acpi=off from the boot menu. I think powernowd should be an option in setup as have never found it to work well with new cpu’s
I’ve now got 8.04 installed, temperatures on sensor (using lm-sensors pkg), are sometimes as high as 70degrees on the gpu. (X31 + ATI card)
tpfan makes it possible to control the fan, and hence the temperatures, – now my temps are 46-49degrees.
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